Not Many People Know That

Phil Burton-Cartledge has crunched the numbers on the political persuasions of the guests on the BBC’s flagship politics programme….. just shy of four years worth of data. Please note I have excluded Question Time’s annual forays to Northern Ireland from the figures.

As of 22 November, 362 individuals have occupied 704 panel slots. For those interested in gender and political participation, only 98 guests have been women. These between them have occupied 235 slots.

Actually I’m not sure what he says he has proved….apart from being an enormous waste of his time…I always assume QT is in the main ‘balanced’…audience aside….so to crunch the numbers on this over a four year period is sheer folly.

The main conclusion seems to be that Nigel Farrage gets on far too many times and that Union Barons hardly at all….and that’s so unfair because Union Barons are the true representatives of millins of hard working people…aren’t they?

Seems just another New Statesman effort, however slight, to ‘defend’ the BBC from charges of being a Lefty bunker.

‘The issue with journalists going on Question Time and spouting off completely destroys the laughable notion that still gets trotted about hacks being “neutral” – all news and editorial judgments are inherently subjective.

But rather than bleating about this, and imaging that Lord Leveson is going to deliver a fairer media through some sort of state-backed regulation, the the left would do better to develop more TV friendly independent minded journalists who are able to articulate the very many popular left positions clearly.

Anyway, great piece and should be spread far and wide every Thursday the minute a right-winger opens their cake hole to bleat about the Marxists controlling the BBC.’

I should of course add a correction to that…..when they say ‘all news and editorial judgements are inherently subjective’.…they don’t mean the nice BBC. Clear?

Here’s the thing…why did the author, ‘Phil the sociologist’, put this piece together?

Phil said…(in reference to the comment about right wingers bleating about the Marxist BBC)

Re: your final comment, I wrote it specifically for those annoying Question Time moments 😉

So essentially it was written as a political piece designed purely to attempt to spike right wing claims of BBC bias…..all it really does is confirm what we always knew about sociologists…they’re a complete waste of time and money…..they come up with ‘research’ that you can hear in any pub any night of the week….as he says in his banner….‘Sociology with a socialist spin’

The rather shy ‘Phil’ is Phil Burton-Cartledge....Ex-ex-blogger, Stoke Labour Party vice chair, constituency secretary & bag carrier, co-founder of Democratic Futures. ….Phil received his PhD from Keele University in 2010. His thesis concerned the life history of revolutionary socialist activists. Phil is interested in political sociology and the sociology of social movements, and in social theory more generally’

Apparently this is Phil on Twitter:

This is him (bottom) in real life along with co-founder Gavin Bailey: Gavin completed his PhD at Keele University in 2011 and his doctoral research looked at the community activities of radical Islamist and far right activists:

The photo of ‘Phil’ raises questions about the truthfulness of this Tweet of his:

@The_Iron_LadPeople like me were actively fighting the Nazis on the streets. Right wingers like you were trying to cut deals with them

Obviously takes a good photo.

Oh yes….can’t have you miss this from the comments, which I’m sure is totally untrue and the mere ramblings of a disgruntled ex-employee…..

‘Lest we forget, the great neutral arbiter Dimblebot himself has form as a nasty, penny pinching businessman. He and his brother owned a series of newspapers in south London until the late 90s where reporters had to buy their own notebooks and were reputedly paid less than the minimum wage based on their long working hours. These journalists only received a substantial payrise and celebrated wildly when the Dimbleboys sold it to the US multinational Newsquest – itself a hated firm not known for their high pay!‘

95 Responses to Not Many People Know That

Just been listening to “The Dark Ages-Age of Light” on BBC4.
Now it`s harmless enough,and well-intentioned, but did I just hear the roving reporter refer to Pauls “Letter to the Galicians”? (in a quote about 20 mins into the show).
Now if I were a Muslim, I could get very angry about this sort of thing.
Being a Christian, it`s more a sense of resignation to the dumbing down of things like this…Kenneth Clark ( Kenneth Williams even!) wouldn`t have been so dim , as to let this through the edit!
Ah well, at least they`re trying…but I`d hope for more somehow!
Apologies for being off-thread, but there`ll be a connection I`d guess…

I watched it for a while but turned it off. His dumbed down material was painful. He introduced the early Christian symbols without explanation (except the Rotas square). Thus the Anchor refers to Hebrews 6:19-20. The Fish symbol refers to ICHTHUS (Greek for fish) = Iesus ChristosTheou Uios Soter = Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour. This was not even mentioned!

It seems as if the BBC is anxious to deny its left wing bias.
Under questioning from the MPs
‘Lord Patten also said he “did not buy the idea that the BBC is a hotbed of Trots(kyists)”‘
Well that and Phil the people’s sociologist seems to put matters straight. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20509003

Oh heck, just seen Torin Douglas pinned on nonsense to the site above.
Ben Bradshaw-ex BBC hack turned Labour MP-twitters than Patten did a fine job…and Torin pins that up, for the rest of us to admire.
What bias?..what fetid bubble of interlinked gasbags on public payrolls mutually adoring each others socks?…where`s prole to tell me that Torin will be telling us what Philip Davis says on Twitter, once he has checked his sources?

‘Will Tony Hall deal with this – and is the same process happening over the EU, the recession and independence? These questions must be answered. ‘
Haaahaaaahahahahahahhahah.
Must they? Or what? (c) Patten. C Lord
At least they didn’t say ‘such power must be held to account’ too.

Just found out that someone is preparing another complaint on behalf of the Space Special Interest group of Mensa to the BBC Trust for January, and something is being prepared for May by people at Oxford and possibly with Fellows of the Royal Society. But there are not many Members of Parliament with the intellectual wit to know what is going on.

So week after week of 4 left to 2 right, varying with 5 left to 1 right means they are balanced. How this liar calculated his figures is anyone’s guess, all we can tell is he must be so far left that anyone from Gordon Brown rightwards is considered to be a right-winger in his eyes.

I know that the Beebatrons that come on this site tried to include Lib Dems as right-wingers after they entered coalition with a Conservative government. This idiot probably also included the Lib Dems and the left-wing Dimbleby as right-wing as those fallacies are also necessary to approach his claims.

You can see how these loony-tunes claim that the BBC is biased towards Israel when any objective assessment could only prove the opposite.

That’s a good point, which the article fails to account for. QT quite rightly tends to draw one member from the three main parties. But that does tend to give a centre left slant, albeit party political balance. It seems that QT balances this by having more right leaning journos and guests. Fair enough I think.

Assuming the data is right, this does though counter the regular accusation trotted out here that the QT panel is skewed to the Left. It used to be a BBBC staple. It also belies the idea that Nigel Farage and ukip don’t get sufficient airtime. Farage is never off the BBC.

I guess because LimpDicks are in a coalition with the Tories they count both of those as right wing? That just shows how pathetic this is, people like Ken Clarke are as left-wing as Simon Hughes, both often on QT, and doing wonders for the ‘QT Right wing’ figures.

With this background I wonder why QT won’t release the mix of the audience under FOI requests???

The key problem with Question Time is not the composition of the panel, but rather the way the questions to be asked are vetted and the composition of the audience.

Question Time is set up to try to make right wing panellists (and others with views that are deemed ‘off’ vs. the BBC moral compass) seem stupid, unpopular, or both. Dimbleby plays a big part in this of course, as he is able to influence when panellists are allowed to talk, and the extent to which they are interrupted. Similarly, the carefully vetted audience means that many right wing messages will be booed right out of the gate.

The funniest moments on the show are usually when a panellist overcomes this careful stage management and goes wildly off-piste. David Starkey for example was hilarious last time he was on, as he simply didn’t care that the audience of stooges was booing his views.

Which brings up my final point: the majority of panellists on the programme are cowards who lack the conviction of their views, particularly in the face of an audience that is hostile to those views. For left-wing panellists, this is not usually a big deal as the BBC can be counted on to have stacked the deck so as to support their asinine positions. For the right-wing panellists however, this means that they tend to self-censor themselves so as to (in their minds) come off better to the audience. In other words, the Question Time set up itself causes the panel to think twice before espousing views that don’t toe the BBC leftist line. In such circumstances, to count the number of so called ‘right wingers’ is quite misleading. Additionally, this doesn’t even touch on the fact that in today’s climate, the typical ‘right winger’ has views that are more properly classed as being either centre or even centre-left, making the whole exercise meaningless from start to finish.

I went to a QT filming in Oxford and Caroline Flint got a very negative reaction to one of her answers but the broadcast version didn’t show that. It left Flint looking all flustered after a seemingly positive reaction.

Also have you noticed how the nut that has a rant is always at the front? It’s almost as if he or she was put there.

‘but how the show is edited.’
Control the edit, you control the message.
Control the message, you control opinion.
Control opinion, and you control policy.
Add unaccountable access to 24/7 broadcast of the message throughout the land with a £4Bpa budget, and you are in total control.
Propaganda backed by censorship has a poor historical precedent some have learned.
Others, not so much.

Excellent points, Gunn. I would just add that audience members are not only selected according to a capricious assessment of the political demographic of the host area, but also for their pre-submitted questions.

Then Dimbleby also chooses the questions, and can step on them if he wants, leaving some things either quickly passed over or ignored altogether.

There are also times when it seems the some panelists come prepared for specific questions, even ones that aren’t obvious topics of the day.

There are more left-wing “comedians” and Polly Toynbees, Will Selfs etc. that appear on QT than journos from the right of centre press. Jim, the point is the data is not right, not in a month of Sundays! Once in this last series they managed 3 nominally from the right to counter the 3 from the left. That is the only time I ever remember it achieving balance.

The balance used to be worked out week after week on here so I know this pillock is lying. I wonder if he counts left-wing “comedians” and journos as neutral. You are so wrong in saying it counters the argument always used on here that it is biased to the left. I doubt the data is wrong, assuming he worked off a list of names, but his interpretation of what part of the political spectrum these people represent clearly is a lie, or even a series of whoppers.

Of course, audience selection is very carefully done to emphasise a large bonkers-left contingent, question selection is virtually always intended to put the right of centre panelist on the defensive, irrespective of the government of the day.

Someone should do an analysis, say of the last 30 or so shows. My guess is it would be fairly balanced. Last episode had two left, two right and one centre. The next one has three right one left and Charlotte church! No nonsense though about eg Ken Clarke types not being right wing.

If by centre you mean Lib Dems, try again. The Libs have positioned themselves on the left for years, one period they were even further left than Labour. That’s why both they and Labour were calling for a “Progressive” Alliance.

Who are the three right on the next programme then? I have genuinely not seen the list as I got fed up with this weekly leftie propaganda shit a bit back and have hardly watched it for a few months. Remembering that Dimbleby is a no-questions-asked Leftoid and makes it clear in his conduct of the programme I am looking forward to seeing your answer.

Jim, is there any reason why you haven’t replied with the list of three righties, one lefty and one Charlotte Church? You are obviously missing Dimbleby who is as red as any Beeboid, but who are the three righties? I await your reply with baited breath.

I’ve just checked the list myself. I’m now intrigued to know which of the Labour Party Shadow Minister or Guardian hack you claim is of the right. D-)

Of course, I can see why Ms Church is on, she has been heavily involved with the NI Phone-hacking scandal, and is guaranteed to be anti-Government on this. After all the BBC and other left-wing media outlets have convinced the public that it was the Conservative government that the NI people were having sleep-overs with and who covered up the phone-hacking. The truth of this is the exact opposite, as is your claim that there are three to the right versus one to the left. Four left and two right is the standard to which the BBC has as minimum weighting.

Jim, your recently found credibility on this site has just run aground and your bias has escaped again.

The trouble with a left/right analysis is that it is, to some extent, outdated. For instance, more than half the population is, if opinion polls are to be believed, Eurosceptic. I’d be surprised if an analysis of panellists remotely reflected this. Of the “right wing” panellists, it’s amazing how often the likes of Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine appear to pop up.

Yes, Phil looks great for a guy in his eighties (the last and only generation of real anti-Fascists. Standing behind a line of police and screaming at white working-class folk who aren’t overjoyed at their towns being transformed in to Third World slums, isn’t quite the same as being on the front line in a World War)

After the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact the Lefties were allied with Hitler until July 1941 when the USSR was invaded. The Communists spent Britain’s “finest hour” fomenting industrial disruption. It was the Communists who were cutting a deal with Hitler.

Incidentally, on the subject of Lefties “fighting Fascism” in Spain, why do they never refer to it as “fighting for Stalinism”? Which is what they were in fact doing – as Orwell pointed out, having witnessed the suppression of the anarchist POUM by the, er, Communists.

The Left has idealised the dupes of the International Brigades simply in order to draw a veil over the pro-Hitler/Stalin activites of the Communists between September 1939 and July 1941. Seems to work, at least for them. Fools. And traitors to democracy.

It was all summed up by a demonstration of the Stop the Islamisation of Europe crowd in Vienna a couple of years ago. A blonde haired blue eyed ‘antifa’ hooligan pushed a Jewish demonstrator to the ground, while yelling ‘Nazi!’ at him.

Which it was, once the Communists had realised that people in the Ukraine were hailing the Nazis as liberators. Stalin redefined the conflict as between Germans and Russians, rather than between competing, near-identical ideologies. That’s why Stalin dropped the Internationale as the anthem of the USSR, and replaced it with the current, really quite solemn one, which makes no reference to the workers.

In Spain, however, the Communists had been fighting for Stalin. In this switch of emphasis from the ideological to the nationalist, the Communists prefigured the BBC today which, whenever it’s under scrutiny, takes the cheap opt-out of claiming itself to be “the Nation’s favourite broadcaster”.

Anyhow, his own figures prove that Labour MPs have been on more than any other party, despite them not being the party of government for most of that 4 years.
Lib Dems seem to get disproportionate airtime.
How many other UKIP MPs get airtime?
The top journalists he notes disregard the army of Guardian/Indy/Times/Observer journalists who appear.
Also in my personal opinion most guests, i.e actors or comedians, and especially charity people ( the woman with the fruitbowl on her head for instance) tend to be lefties.

So even being selective with the data as he is, it proves there is a left wing bias.

I’m sure he did. Unfortunately, and I am speaking as one very sympathetic to UKIP, they do appear to choose complete duffers as their MEPs, who are best kept away from the television. I guess it’s because anyone contemplating a serious political career wouldn’t go to a party like UKIP. Something that afflicts all small parties until they achieve a certain critical mass that makes it worthwhile for the more able politicians to weigh in.

Lib Dems appear to get disproportionate airtime only if one doesn’t accept that they’re there as representatives of the Government, and not for whichever side of the spectrum. It doesn’t help the Left/Right balance, but it’s a handy excuse.

I’d say it’s the audience more than the panel, much of the time.
I wonder if they all start booing and hissing at the checkout lady when they have to pay for the groceries, or at the postman when he delivers their credit card bill?

notice how many of panel work for the BBC or have worked for the beeb.
You don’t play cards with a dodgy deck.The tories should refuse to appear as they are busy trying to clear up the mess that they were left with.

That’s because the BBC is the Leviathan. It’s so massive and covers so many areas and types of broadcasting that it must be extremely tempting to take the BBC shilling at one point or another in one’s career. And many of these people seem to move around from place to place like coaches for US sports teams, so it’s almost inevitable that a majority of them will have at one time or another done something for the BBC.

Might be an idea to assign some sort of coefficient to each panellist – we could crowd source the ratings -to take account of Conservatives In Name Only like Patten or Ken Clarke, and also the “entertainers” and “journalists” who’ve been on.

Taking Polly “Tuscany” Toynbee as 100 and, say, Farage as 20, we could rate each panel and get the true weightings. Just a thought. More accurate than this Lefty’s “analysis”, for one thing.

Phil Burton-Cartledge: Phil received his PhD from Keele University in 2010. His thesis concerned the life history of revolutionary socialist activists. Phil is interested in political sociology and the sociology of social movements, and in social theory more generally. He also formerly ran the well-known ‘A Very Public Sociologist’ politics blog, and is currently working with Stoke-on-Trent MP Tristram Hunt on a project to bring the local business and ‘third sector’ communities together.

also-look at his twitter feed-someone has obviously tipped him off about this site
apparently he thinks the claims of left wing bias are “spacious”

Phil said…(in reference to the comment about right wingers bleating about the Marxist BBC)
Re: your final comment, I wrote it specifically for those annoying Question Time moments
So essentially it was written as a political piece designed purely to attempt to spike right wing claims of BBC bias…..all it really does is confirm what we always knew about sociologists…they’re a complete waste of time and money…..they come up with ‘research’ that you can hear in any pub any night of the week….as he says in his banner….‘Sociology with a socialist spin’

Presumably he is the Phil Burton-Cartledge who (a two minute Internet search tells me) was expelled from the Socialist Party for not informing them that he was also a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

If he says the BBC Question Time is not biased to the Left it must be true.

Two minutes more Internet research tells us that Phil Burton Cartledge specialises in class consciousness and has

“blended a modern interpretation of Gramsci with social movement theory that followed the 1968 revolts. As a result Phil has..understanding of what it takes to create a mass movement.”

Left Futures quotes him defending Thacker on the grounds that “It was a case of Rotherham Children and Young People’s Services being damned if they did act. And damned if they didn’t” which tells you rather a lot about the bigotry of his Leftist mind set.

In a review of a book about Marxism he concludes

“Never before in history have so many working lives been subject to the capriciousness of capital…common experience of class relationships can act as the social glue for a whole series of seemingly disconnected
subaltern struggles. As long as this state of affairs persists, there will be
activists, parties and movements who turn to Marxism to make sense of their
circumstances. It is here where the fusion of Marxist theory and practice can and will be found.”

I went back over just the last 5 and they are relentless 4 left to 2 right (assigning the two journalists to the right). The Cable Street veteran is proved to be a liar and I’m not going to waste any more of my time proving what we all know anyway.

The trouble is when you have a lefty informing us that there isn’t a left wing bias at the Beeb. He will be judging things through his own particular political prism.
And he has spent four year rsearching this?!
For Gawd’s sake mate get a life!

The trouble is when you have a righty informing us that there is a left wing bias at the Beeb. He will be judging things through his own particular political prism.

Bit like David Preiser’s forthcoming list of biased tweets which will focus only on those he deems biased to the “left” irrespective of how small a proportion these are of the total tweets by any one individual.

johnnythefish,
Here’s a perfect example:Analysis: Jobs supported by the UK’s nuclear deterrenthttp://bbc.in/Ud3VF5
The UK does not have a “nuclear deterrent”; it has nuclear weapons. Whether or not they are a “deterrent” is a matter of opinion, yet the BBC continually repeats it as fact.